


Even The Longest Day is Followed by a Dawn

by goodgirlwhoshopeful



Category: Being Human (UK), Being Human (UK) RPF
Genre: Annie Centric, Canon, F/M, Slight Canon Divergence, being human series 3, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:32:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirlwhoshopeful/pseuds/goodgirlwhoshopeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by my re-watched of BH S3 last night – slight plot divergence from 'The Longest Day' episode, as I believe Annie should always have laid into Mitchell a little more... and because who doesn't need more Annie x Mitchell. </p><p>Annie dealing with the fall out of the, 'You want every little corner of me' fiasco.</p><p>Rated for language / slight hints at some distressing themes, because we all know Annie had it hard... and just because. (I love her so much). </p><p> </p><p>For my love @loveofmylonglife on tumblr because... well, she knows. <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even The Longest Day is Followed by a Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveofmylonglife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveofmylonglife/gifts).



_"“Crazy” is one of the five deadly words guys use to shame women into compliance._  
_The others: Fat. Ugly. Slutty. Bitchy. They sum up the supposedly worst things a woman can be._

_What we really mean by “crazy” is: “She was upset, and I didn’t want her to be.”"_

– <https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/09/men-really-need-to-stop-calling-women-crazy/>

* * *

 

She _hated_ him, so _fucking_ much, in that moment. _Guttural_ , all consuming, bloodcurdling _hate._

 

 _“…For_ fucks _sake, Annie!…”_

_“Don’t talk to me like that – ”_

_“ – Well say something sensible then! Jesus!”_

 

Annie could cope with many things, god knew. She could have overlooked the fact that Mitchell had been an absolute _dickhead,_ turning all raging-Dracula and everything and even the fact that he had shouted at her, humiliating her in front of their friends simply for having an idea that wasn’t _murder_. He had talked down to her, _sneered_ at her as though she hadn't even the right to speak… but she would take that a thousand times repeated in comparison to what had followed. 

He said he never meant any of it. He was never in love with her. 

_“What do you want from me?!”_

He’d said the words and Annie had instantly felt them smash through her ribs like a canon-ball.

 _“You want_ every little corner of me… _and I just don’t wanna’ give it!”_

He’d said he hadn’t meant any of it… and she felt her heart quake with the reverence behind his voice. In that moment, she believed him, too. 

 _“Oh come on, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!”_ The words bounced around in her skull as she cowered against the wall in her room, burying her head in the curtains. _“All the bright smiles and the chat? It just doesn’t make up for what just_ isn’t there. _”_

 _Like me,_ she’d thought. _Because I’m not really here. I’m just a ghost, a phantom of what I was… I was never good enough then and I’m even more useless now._

 

Either way, she’d grappled, she’d clung, feeling the desperation of her own hopeless holding on like the heat and searing pain of a friction burn on one’s palms, stammering out excuses and denials of his words. _No, you saved me. You came and got me. You –_ She almost did say it then. _You loved me,_ but then she realised, she didn’t actually know if that were ever true.  Had he? Or had he convinced himself that it was love to appease his dark soul, that haunted him so much in his days as it did in his nightmares?

 _“I was in love with the idea of being a hero, a rescuer – your saviour!”_ He’d looked at her up and down then and she could have sworn she saw his lip upturn, as though he was disgusted. _“That’s what I was in love with – not you.”_ He gave a shrug – a _shrug –_ and wiped his mouth with his hand. _“It’s for the best. One day you’ll realise.”_

 

It had taken everything in her to even manage to walk away. Suddenly, for the first time since she died, Annie felt as though her feet were made of lead, like she used to whenever Owen would be a little too stern or get a little too close… But this was worse, somehow. 

Instead of fear, she felt paralysed by loss, by a kind of grief, as though someone had reached into her chest and ripped out a vital organ that kept her alive – figuratively, of course – and then expected her to be able to move. 

 _How_ could she? How could she _move_ when the only man she had ever _truly_ loved had just blown out her ribs like a grenade?

She managed to rent-a-ghost to her room and had collapsed in the furthest corner. The others, George and Nina, were all too preoccupied with Herrick to even notice her being gone, much less that she was a inconsolable mess just a storey away. She was surprised they couldn’t hear it, though, with their super wolf senses, because inside her it felt like the fall of some kind of skyscraper, crashing to the ground below with such _destruction_ and _heat_ and _noise_ and crushing everything in its path. That and, poltergeist tendencies considered, her weeping made the electric currents within the house throb, ebb and surge with the rhythm of her distress. 

She ignored it though, all of it. It may have been selfish, but now, she had nothing else. Gone were worries of what to do with a senile, regenerated evil vampire mastermind or George and Nina’s werewolf baby, as she was left with nothing but a tsunami of sorrow that threatened her very sanity with each passing second. 

She wanted to _scream._ Why was it _vampires_ always got to rage? Why was it they were always given the excuse to lose themselves in their vices, their grief, their sorrow, their vanity, their _rage?_ How was it fair? She had been nothing but a moral, kind, overly-considerate person _all_ her life – both living and ghost – and yet, was she allowed to beat down buildings when things got tough? Was she allowed a mistake? Was she allowed a reliable, consistent love?

No. Of course not. 

But a poor, misunderstood, hundred and seventeen year old _vampire?_ Well, he was allowed all the misgivings in the book…because ‘ _he never chose this’._ He could belittle, he come dismiss and he could _growl_ and scream and throw punches and not one person seemed to say ‘ _what about me’?_ Not George, and barely even Nina. 

To Mitchell, the wise, sexual predator, she was nothing but a timid, fluttering ball of nervous energy… No wonder nothing she had done had turned him on. 

Annie was once a pretty frightened type; she was timid in times of crisis and flapped too much, like a headless chicken – (Well, she still did a little) – and in that moment, as she played and replayed Mitchell’s words, his tone, his entitlement, his _condescension,_ over and over, she realised that _that_ was how he saw her. 

Well, not today.

The very thought of it made her blood simmer, almost settling a feverish itch under her skin. If she hadn’t been dead, it occurred to her that what she was experiencing would perhaps be called a panic attack.

 

And just like that, after confronting Herrick and being sent into a fever of fear, she had found herself face to face with the dark, sinful Irishman again, having been determined not to look at him, let alone _speak_ to him, for days. She had ranted, feeling such intense satisfaction as she managed to call him a ‘five star dickhead’ while also feeling furiously retreated that she couldn’t think of something more poisonous to say, to relieve the festering, toxic disappointment and despair in her chest. “…I will do it!” she’d said, gripping the improvised stake in her hand, made form one of the many discarded walking sticks from the old reception area, sharpened to a point in George’s rage. 

“You’re not strong enough for ‘em,” had been his response from beneath his shockingly frizzling mane of hair, and that alone had been enough to reminder the burning rage in her gut.  There he went again, doubting her, _dismissing her._

“I think what and _who_ I love and I think about them in danger and I could _tear_ this _bloody_ house down _with my teeth!_ You have no _idea_ how _strong I am!”_

She had been more than a little satisfied by the look of surprise on his face and the silence that followed, as it was a rarity for John Mitchell not to insist on the last word. 

Either way though, he’d dragged her back before she could get to Herrick and drive the walking stick stake into his heart, settling on the edge of his bed with a shining new black eye – courtesy of George – with his lash lines pink with the tell-tale sign of tears.  At the sight, she’d usually simper into a pit of sympathy and empathy, but today? It mixed into the dark, cesspit of doubt and ugly anger inside her and the result was toxic. She wanted to pull that hair, to make him whimper and cry and take it all back… but that wouldn’t mean anything if he didn’t mean it. 

“Let go of my hand,” she’d managed to say, because he hadn’t let it go. His dark eyes, usually responsible for such _human_ tingles of anticipation and attraction inside her, were gazing over her frame, from her eyes to her hands in his and back again. She felt the tears rising again with a vengeance and with it came the words she had long repressed, that would shift the ground beneath their feet and cut into their skin like shattered glass. 

“I said some things I didn’t mean…”

_But you did, because you never say mean things sober unless you mean them._

“Then why the hell would you _say_ them?”

“ _Because_ …” The long pause left her heart hammering – well, it didn’t, obviously, but it would have. Instead, it left the ora and energy that _was_ her humming with a nervous throb. “You and me, it’s for _eternity_ …” She peeked down at him then, expecting that this was perhaps another one of his masterful elaborate excuses… but instead she saw the solemn whites of his eyes and the gleam in them… and felt his truth. “I was running scared – a _typical_ , _useless_ man – but – I don’t want to live without you.”

She wanted to collapse at his words, having never heard words of romance from John Mitchell before. Usually, being his old-fashioned, brooding self, he struggled even to say ‘I had sex last night,’ much less ‘I love you’, so the confession rendered her utterly speechless.  She was thankful she didn’t have to breathe, because she was certain breath would not have come. Surely, he didn’t mean it? Surely, it was a cruel, cruel joke?

“I _can’t_ live without you,” he clarified solidly, never once taking his eyes from her face, his fingers sliding continuously over her knuckles. “I can’t… _I can’t_ …” 

He repeated the phrase until they were both crying and Annie had given in, clinging around his neck and into his ridiculous hair as he wrapped his arms around her hips and pressed his face into her stomach, almost like a little boy. It made her feel alight with the feeling of being wanted, but also heavy with the reminder of children, the children she would never have, as it was such a childlike pose. 

While she was grateful for the confession and truth he had just given her though, she knew it wasn’t enough.

“You dismiss me,” she managed through the tears that rendered her throat almost entirely closed. She felt his grip on her hips tighten, implying his acceptance. “You… _forget_ me – _forget_ that I _know_ you, John Mitchell. You forget that I’ve aways been here for you – but mostly? You forget that I’m human…that it’s possible for the ridiculously positive, always-naively-see-the-bright-side ghost also has moments of darkness – because I _do,_ Mitchell, I really do.”

He had retracted his face from its hiding place in the grey cotton of her top now, sniffing hard to clear his tears away and looking up at her with a confused interest. “I had no idea – “ he tried. 

“ – Yeah, well, of _course_ you don’t!” she scorned, before her could stop herself, feeling the phantom sensation of tears down her cheeks. “You don’t let _anyone_ have moments of darkness because that would mean taking away from yours! That would mean that the people you have put around you wouldn’t be _entirely_ focussed on you and your demons one _hundred_ per cent of the _bloody_ time – “

“ – That’s not fair! – “ he piped, typically defensive again, which made her have to drop away from his touch until her back found the wall. 

“ – _Nothing_ about this life is fair!” she cried hysterically, unable to let him fall back into his usual pattern of apology, defence, ignorance. She watched his eyes change as she raised her voice, as though he was only now realising that she was entirely serious. “You think _my life_ is _fair?_ You think the fact that I _love you,_ with _every fucking thing_ I have, only for you to remain distance and – and – and – “ The word was right there, tip of her tongue, but even now it made her bashful to say it, hot with the shame of it, “ – _limp_ when I’ve tried everything, is _fair?!_ ”

His eyes were closed now, as though her words were hurting him. _Good,_ she wanted to say. _Now, you see._

“You think _so much_ about your existence is so _unfair –_ and granted, yes, it’s awful that you have this desire to kill people all the time – but the rest of us have massive, _massive_ demons too! Nina? She might kill her _baby_ just by being what she is!” she listed. “And George? He’d have to live with the fact there’s nothing he could do – that the thing _he gave to her_ killed his child.” 

She was almost astounded her could still speak, as she could taste the memory of salt on her lips as the tears kept falling.“And me?” Now, her voice wasn’t shouting anymore, as her insides felt like mush as she now had to admit her own darkness, something that she usually buried very, _very_ deep. He was looking up now, not interrupting, and she knew he ws on the edge of his seat. “I’m stuck. You could all be in so much danger and I feel such _desperation_ at not letting that happen because I _can’t_ lose you… because then I’ll be alone, in the whole world, I’ll be alone.”

“ _Annie_ – “ Cupping her hand over her mouth to sob, Mitchell was gazing at her with such a look of sympathy, it made her weak, but she wasn’t done. She shook her head and ignored him. 

“ – I will never have alI I want most, _ever_ again,” she managed, looking away from his and down at her hands. “I never did give much thought to how awful my sex life was, when I had an actual life. I thought _all_ woman didn’t really get the attention from their partners and that sex was all about the man and his – his – _pleasure_ – “ she wheezed, “because that’s all I knew.” 

Across the room, Mitchell was making groans of despair at her confession, as she knew he despised the very thought of Owen and what she realised now had been his abusive behaviour. “If I’d know ya’, Annie – “ he began, tears making his voice falter. 

“ – You’d, _what_?” she countered, trying to smile through her sorrow. “Have whisked me away? _‘Hey, love – you don’t know me but I’m a vampire and your fiancee is abusive. If you stay with this guy, he’ll probably kill you’_ – ” 

Her impression of him would have made him laugh, if he hadn’t been crying… and if she hadn’t been right. That reality was but a fantasy. Truly, with Mitchell as he was, had he met her as a human, he’d have probably cared for little more than the pulse at her throat. 

“You’d have never wanted me like I was – _submissive_ and timid and… _periphery_ – “ She spat out the word like a curse, remembering Owen’s use of taunting her with it. 

“Annie – No – Of _course_ I would – “ 

Now, she rolled her eyes in annoyance. “No, you wouldn’t! Don’t you bullshit with me, John Mitchell!” Taking a deep breath – or, what would have been a deep breath had she needed one – she composed herself a little. “You don’t even want me as I am _now_ – “

Looking at him, his yes were suddenly wide and alert and he was on his feet, frozen in bemusement. “ – You’re _everything_ I want!”

“Evidently not, Mitchell – or was I just imagining the _limpness?!”_ It made her drown in shame just to _think_ of it, all those long mornings on his days off she’d spend trying to find solutions that might put some spice and _heat_ between them, only for his body to remain stubbornly taut and… unexcited. She’d never said, but it had set her back more than any other occurrence in her new, ghost existence. Perhaps it had been self-consciousness plaguing her, but as Owen had made her feel so useless in the bedroom department during her _life,_ such failures with Mitchell left her desperate. He’d smiled and excuse it all away, of course, insisting that it didn’t matter. _‘We can have something better, something pure’_ , he’d said, and while that did sound admirable and wonderful, it left her feeling such guilt about the fact she  _gutturally_  wanted to break down in tears, because, in her darkest moments, _all_ she really wanted was intimacy with the beautiful, irrational, complicated, all-consuming John Mitchell, the way her human self could, in another life.

“I _told_ ya’,” he began to excuse with a sigh. “I thought we were over this – _it doesn’t matter!”_

“It matters to _me!”_ she cried, the volume of her voice silencing him. She watched his eyes go round and she knew she had to elaborate. “In my life, _all_ I wanted was to _love_ the man I thought I would be with forever with _everything_ I had and _look_ where that got me! Even now, I do _everything_ I can because I cannot, _cannot, be that failure again.”_ She pictured the man before her, with all his many, many lovers, some long dead and some dead by his own hand, and it left a phantom ache in her chest. “I look at you now and I know you don’t understand it – _I don’t_ entirely _–_ I mean, _why would you? Y_ ou’ve never felt unwanted in your whole life,” she prophesied mournfully, secretly almost jealous of the fact. “Even as a vampire, you’re looked up to! Women still want you, men still want to be you or be at your side – “ She clenched her eyes shut at the thought of the former. “Me? I’ve never felt wanted, Mitchell… I’m always just following along behind.” 

In front of her, Mitchell was silent, unmoving, swallowing hard against whatever emotion he was clearly keeping back. 

“So, when you saved me, you came back _for me,_ I felt that… _surge_ of being _wanted_ for the first time ever and I realised – not _wonder_ you’re so addicted to it!” He went to protest, but moved steps forward to quieten him. “God, I felt _invincible_ , knowing that you wanted me around enough to do that for me – “

“ – and I would again!” he defended without pause. “All over again!”

She felt the determination behind his declaration square in her chest, like a kickstart to her unhearing pulse. “ – I know.” She managed a small smile and a slight familiar tingle returned for a moment. “But I also know that the… lack of… well, sex… it affected me more than I… could say…” Her throat began to clam up at the thought of having to voice such deep insecurities aloud, but she knew it had to be now. She had to tell him. “It’s silly, I know, and I know I got over-the-top and made you feel frightened – I just – “ With a wheeze, sniffed hard. “I just didn’t want the feeling of being wanted to go away… I didn’t want to be the ghost on the periphery again – because that’s what I was, before I mean.”

Mitchell, predictably, was shaking his head in disagreement. “No, Annie – _Never! – “_

 _“ – Yes, I was!”_ she defended. “ _Jesus,_ Mitchell. You have no idea, do you?” Memories of all those days, roaming the pink house and the streets surrounding, alone, while he and George were off at work, off gallivanting around without her, returned all at once and made her feel ill. “ _Everything_ pales in comparison to the feeling I got when I realised I was the one you wanted – _everything!”_ The memory of their first kiss bounced off the walls of her skull like pinball. “And the idea of not having that again? _Never_ knowing that _desire_ again? Well, that wouldn’t be worth living for – _or, well, existing_ for.” 

Mitchell’s breathing was heavy, as was hers, as though all her truths were a marathon they had run together. It certainly felt like it, besides. Slowly, she moved back to the bed, this time sitting down beside him, though she daren’t touch him yet. 

“I know I stifle you – I _know_ I want every little corner of you – I know I can be too much – but – “ The words were rising like the sea, but she felt no desire to halt them now. “It’s just because I can’t live without _you either,_ Mitchell. I can’t _bear_ distance between us because it feels like I’m with Owen all over again – left behind and taken for granted. The lack of sex? No, it shouldn’t matter, but I can’t help feeling like it’s all the same as it was back then – that there’s something wrong with me – “

“No way!” Mitchell defied passionately, pulling her hands from her own lap and into his closing the gap between them to press kisses to the side of her face. “Annie, there’s nothing – “

“Then, _why?”_ she pleaded desperately, tears falling from her eyes fresh, her voice now but a croak. “I mean, I _know_ it was always about the blood, but – you haven’t even – we’ve barely _tried!”_

Stilling his lips, Mitchell sighed, because, as always, she was right. He’d dismissed the sex thing from the beginning – right from that very first conversation with George. It hadn’t been easy, so he hadn’t even tried, that was the long and short of it. With human women, it was all too easy, because it was all a game of cat and mouse and he’d had a hundred years of practice at that. 

But with Annie? It was like being a virgin, Catholic boy in Ireland all over again, vulnerable and bare and he hadn’t been ready for that. 

“You’re right,” he whispered, smoothing his gloved palms over her boney hands, thriving in the chill and tingle of them. “I discounted it on principle – but that was entirely out of typical male apathy, mind! Nothin’ to do with you.”

Sniffing, Annie wiped the last of her tears away and he did the same to his own and there was a pregnant pause. 

“You’re sure?” 

The fragile, insecure nature of her words left him awash with pity. Poor Annie; she did nothing to deserve this – any of it. He pulled her against him then, claiming her mouth in a kiss that he hoped would say all he wished to for him.

It did, too. Annie felt the difference in this kiss, somehow. There was a certainty behind it, as there was with all things with Mitchell, but there was also a kind of _desire –_ a surge _._ She didn’t feel it as her living self would have – it was almost like kissing someone under wear, where the textures were all evened out and similar and the temperature was all wrong. She could barely feel the stubble that she knew was against her face and beneath her hand, much less the heat of his skin that she knew was there. (He wasn't as hot as a human man, obviously, but compared to a ghost he was toasty). 

The realisation left her limp with despair as she pulled away, well aware that _he_ would be unaware of all of this. He would never understand what it felt like to be numbed by death, after all. If _only_ she could reach inside him, she thought, and feel the soul and generous heart she knew was in here. The, she wouldn't need something as human and trivial as sex. If she could _hold_ him, the man she loved, then that would be enough. 

But as it was? She could barely even feel his kiss.

“Oh, I _wish_ I could feel you,” she whispered, smoothing her hands into the tangle of his curls as they were _still_ in his eyes. He squinted at her, not quite understanding, but said nothing. “It’s like I’m touching you through water; all _cold_ and distance and smoothed over. I just there was a way I could – ”

Suddenly, she had an idea. That was it! She _could reach inside him,_ in a way… But would it work?

“Mitchell, touch me.” 

His brows rose instantly in a surprised arch and his mouth remained slightly open and a moment later, the corner of his lips had risen in the cheeky smile she loved… and would dream about, if she could dream. 

“Go on!” she urged, her enthusiasm returning with a vengeance. 

Hesitantly, he reached to touch her face, his large hand covering the entire side of it. She felt the buzz of it, but there was no friction, no roughness she knew his skin would have, skin and glove combined. Feeling brave, she poised her fingers at his temples. Channelling her focus, she employed the skill she had long known she had, taught to her by her friendly World War Two pilot ghost friend months and months ago. With a deep breath, she pushed against the invisible barrier she felt pushing back and suddenly, to her astonishment, she felt something shift… and just like that, she was inside John Mitchell’s head. 

He didn’t know of this skill until she had shown him she could taste his drink telepathically in the bar a few night ago, when she’d made the critical, ridiculous decision to get him to pick up a living woman in the hope she could therefore have telepathically sex with Mitchell. Now, his eyes shone with knowing at what her plan was. 

Just like that, she felt something smooth, satin-like, and realised it from her cheek, under his thumb, tingling and buzzing like static energy. 

 _“Oh!”_ she gasped, opening her eyes. “I can feel _me_!”

Mitchell was instantly grinning, despite the fact his eyes were red with the memory of his earlier tears. 

“What?” she asked self consciously, as his hand made it’s way into her hair, which she was pleased to find felt smooth and buoyant.

“You.” Closing the space between them, he kissed her and she was taken aback to feel her own lips through his, charged like an electric current and cold. She felt his breath move the air against her face, but didn’t feel its warmth. “You’re amazing.” 

She would have blushed, should she have been able to. “Oh, I don’t know.” Swallowing hard, she pushed him back enough to look into his eyes. “I have a better idea.”

“You’re full of surprises tonight,” he countered humorously, his hands still moving over hers and up her arms to her face. “What’s this idea?”

Suddenly, she felt a sense of sexual promiscuity that she never had felt before, as she grinned at him from underwear lashed before trying to fix him with her best, alluring gaze. 

“Touch yourself,” she ordered, closing the gap between them to kiss the underside of his jaw, so she wouldn’t have to see his face, her fingers still on her temples. 

She felt him attempt to bulk and retract. “Y’what?!” he barked breathlessly. “Annie – are y’mad?”

She knew he’d have such a reaction – he was from the early twentieth century, after all! Such personal intimacies were not something to be paraded then, and he no doubt never had in his life since. Somehow, he didn’t seem the type. 

“You heard me, Mitchell,” she countered unsympathetically. “You’re not… _frightened,_ are you?”

She was teasing him, probing him into submission, she knew that, but she also knew it would work.

“Nah, nah, ‘course not.” Still though, he didn’t move. 

“Trust me, Mitchell.” She rose her eyes to meet his, an inch away. “Please. Let me do this.”

 

That was how she managed to feel him for the first time, _really_ feel him, as his own hands smoothed over the prickle of his jaw and the soft, fuzz of her chest and she felt the texture of it all through her telepathic connect. It left her mouth watering, as her mind was suddenly alight with a very human urge to consume every aspect of him as much as she could. She could feel _warmth –_ it was _that_ that made her sobbing begin again. She could remember the last time she had felt the warmth of skin, such a menial, human desire but something that she hadn’t realised she had missed more than _living_ until she felt it again. 

While it hadn’t been under her own hands that she had felt him, but she _had,_ either way.

She could have flattened the whole of Barry Island with the power of her relief. 

“Hey, hey!” he cooed into her ear as her hands fell away from his temples, limp in his lap as she cried into his duvet. “What – what? What is it?” 

It was like some sort of Post-Traumatic Stress, she thought, as image after image of her human life came rushing back all at once, triggered by the feeling of warm skin; her first, awful boyfriends; fumbles in the back of the cinema; her mum’s hugs; her marriage to Owen; arrogant, ego-filled sex; the pregnancy test in the bin that she’d forgotten to hide from him; his fist against her side; the feeling of the doctor as she probed and inspected and told her she was too late… It all came back. 

How many touches had she known in her life? Tens of thousands? _Hundreds_? Yet, how many were tender? How many had been based in love? In the latter part of her ‘living’ life, she sadly suspected not many. 

“Annie!” he cooed in a panic, smoothing a hand over her hair as he burrowed his face against her shoulder, urging her to let him in. “Annie! _Jesus_ , sweetheart, please,  _talk_ to me.”

The pet-name made her heart ache, as she had never been called that name with such tenderness before, never mind by Mitchell. 

“I’m fine!” she croaked, pathetically, wiping her eyes and attempting to bring back her usual sunniness. “Fine, just – a little – um – _fragile. Sorry!”_ She swallowed loudly, questing her wailing sobs behind her hand.

“Jesus, Annie, what the hell?!” He pulled her against his chest and she felt the firm outline of his hold, but mourned the lack of heat again her. 

Panic rose in her throat like vomit at the thought of telling him it all, how Owen used to get angry so much that her death by falling down the stairs hadn’t been the first time; how she’d hit that tiled floor once before… and as a result lost a life that wasn’t even yet a life.  "I was just... reminded, that's all," she excused, clinging to his corse shirt with all the strength she had. Gently, she felt him move, lifting her in his hold until they were in the centre of the bed, legs entwined. 

"Of what?" 

Like the prick of a needle, Annie had to pause before she could get over the pain of saying his name. "Owen... Of... _bad_ things."

They were quite for a long time, as Mitchell held her with strength that would have hurt her if she had been human, she was sure. His fingers were up and down her back in the most tender of caresses and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying.  _Jesus,_ where had all these tears come from? 

"Perhaps I'd lied," she realised suddenly, the words soft and almost to herself, breaking the quiet of the night. She half wondered if Mitchell had fallen asleep. "When Tim was here; perhaps I had wanted one."

Frowning, Mitchell nudged her face with his nose to get her eyes to meet him. "What? Tim, who? Sorry, I'm lost." 

She rolled her eyes in a delightfully wifely way, he thought. "Tim! The  _ghost_ _baby,_ remember?" She swallowed and for a long moment, her eyes were very sad. "I asked you if you'd ever wanted children and everything, and I'd said I hadn't really thought about it either..." 

Images of the pregnancy test in Owen's hand, the furious _paranoia_ in his eyes, left her momentarily paralysed. 

"I knew you hadn't meant it, Annie."

That surprised her. "What?! How?!"

With a sad smile, he pressed a kiss to her hairline, which she felt only as pressure and the outline of his lips. "Because you're you, Annie! That, and I saw how you were with that baby... You were a natural."

Until the day he died, John Mitchell would never know the profound effect his choice of words would have on her, or that it was the greatest compliment Annie was sure a vampire could have ever given to a dead woman – particularly a dead woman who had always been excessively broody, anyway. 

Her eyes stung and words failed her, so she hummed an acknowledgment that wobbled, leaving no question to Mitchell of her emotional state, and reached up to touch his temples. This, in itself, became a symbolic thing, between the two of them, an unwritten, unspoken exchange. 

It said, _'Can I feel you? Can I have a little corner of you, just for a while?'_ , and Mitchell's simple smile was all the reply she needed. 

Then, he'd touch his own face, or hers, or even smell the scent of his shirts, just to fill overzealous, generous,  _sweet_ Annie with all the stimuli she so desperately craved, because it was the least he could do, after the continual mistakes he made. 

 

 

Every once in a while, before the end of it all, Annie and Mitchell did also find more... _intimate_  uses for this new connection, too, despite Mitchell's claim that what they had was simply pure... because, well, as George liked to say: beneath their idiosyncrasies, they were _human_ , after all. 


End file.
